World War I: Why We FoughtDecember 5, 2006
by William P. Meyers

By "We", I mean the citizen-soldiers
of the United States of America. According to family legends both
of my grandfathers served in World War I, or at least served in
the U.S. armed services during that period.

In yesterday's blog I explained
why the sinking of the Lusitania was only a pretext for Woodrow
Wilson to lead (from the safety of the Oval Office) the United
States of America into war in 1917 against the Axis powers, Germany,
Austria and Turkey. Our major allies were Great Britain, France,
and Russia.

It is not the case that we were fighting for democracy. Germany
and Great Britain had similar systems of government: a king (or
Kaiser) plus an elected equivalent of our Congress. France was
organized more like the U.S., as a democracy. Turkey and Russia
matched well in being closer to pure kingdoms. Austria had an
Emperor and had done some minor experiments with democracy. Nor
were we fighting against Germany because it had a militaristic
society. While Germany had a much larger standing army that Great
Britain, this is because it was surrounded by other militaristic
states. Great Britain's military had conquered half the world
well before World War I broke out; you can't get more militaristic
than that.

There are a number of good theories for why we went to war.
Some may be true in part. The most cynical is that some wise cabal
of secret leaders saw an opportunity to sit and watch the great
European powers bleed to near death, then have the U.S.A. jump
into the war at the last minute and reap the fine fruit of victory.
That is certainly what happened, but there is no solid evidence
I know of that it was a plan.

My current thinking is that it was all about money. I used
to think that there was a sort of conspiracy between certain English
banks and certain American ones like J. P. Morgan & Company
and The National City
Bank (later Citibank). But apparently no conspiracy theory
is necessary to explain the dynamics of the situation.

Great Britain ruled the seas. The British Navy imposed a blockade
on Germany and the other Axis powers. As a result the only nations
the U.S. could trade with were Britain, France and Russia. But
they had only so much to trade with, so they sought loans in the
U.S. to cover the trade imbalance. The U.S. had been in a depression
(not the Great Depression) before the war began in 1914. In order
to keep the economy booming Woodrow Wilson decided to approve
some American private bank loans to England and France. This enabled
them to buy ammunition, armaments and food from the U.S.A.

We were addicted. To keep the economy going first the U.S.
banks and then the U.S. government itself had to lend ever increasing
amounts of money to the Allies. The only problem was that even
with all this help, it looked like the Axis powers might win the
war, or at least come to a stalemate with German armies occupying
northern France. Then the revolution took place in Russia (usually
called the Communist revolution, but at first it was everyone
against the Czar; Lenin's gang took over in a counter-revolution
against the genuine revolutionaries). No longer having to fight
Russia, the Austrians and Germans were set to crush France, at
which point no one figured Britain would be able to carry on the
fight alone.

It is not a good idea to lend losers vast sums of money. The
rules of war back then is that the losers admitted to starting
the war (France and Russia had, in fact, started the war) and
paid vast sums of money to the winners. Hence if Germany won the
war the outcome would be that France and Britain would not be
able to repay the loans lent by the U.S.A.

So the choice that confronted Woodrow Wilson was: make sure
the Allies win by joining the war on their side, or watch the
economy go into a meltdown.

After the war Germany was made to pay reparations. As part
of winning the war, in order to get loans from Jewish bankers,
the government of Great Britain promised Palestine to Zionist
Jews. German armies were still on French soil when the armistice
was signed. Out of this brew the ultra-right in Germany created
their stab-in-the-back theory. They said they lost the war because
Germany's Jews had sabotaged the war effort. This led eventually
to Adolph Hitler and the National Socialists coming to power and
World War I having to be fought all over again, only this time
they called it World War II.